“How is that possible? My dad walked in on me jerking off.”
“I can’t believe I’m telling you this,” Connor said.
“You’re not. Not yet.”
“Okay. Fine. So you know my mom used to be a schoolteacher?”Connor said.
“I think so, yeah.”
“Okay. So because of that, she can’t just have fun. Therealways has to be a learning element. Like some women would have girlfriendsthey get together and drink wine with. Some people would play cards or a boardgame. A knitting circle, you name it. Not Mom. She always needs to turn it intoa club. For a while, it was book clubs, but focused on a particular topic. Liketrue crime or historical fiction. Then it was a cinema club where each memberhad to give a presentation about their favorite scene from one of theirfavorite movies.
“Then she started an art club. They’d get together once amonth and one of the ladies would give a presentation on one of her favoriteartists. Then they’d all get buzzed and watch a Nancy Myers movie and cry.Anyway, so the group meets one day and it’s my mom’s turn and she’s going togive a presentation on Michelangelo. So she sets this easel up in the livingroom and puts this big coffee table book on it that’s got color prints ofMichelangelo’s sculptures. And she’s all ready to do her spiel and…”
“And?” Logan asked.
“Well, what she didn’t know was that I’d developed a realfondness for Michelangelo at the time. Especially his work with the male form.So the coffee table book had spent a lot of time in my room.”
“You were jerking it to Michelangelo in your room?” Loganasked.
“Yes, and apparently my aim was off because my mom put thebook up on the easel and started leafing through it during her presentation,and when she got to the section on male statues all the pages were stucktogether.”
Logan exploded with laughter so hard he had to grab theedges of the table to keep from going off his stool.
“Was she able to play it off at least?” he asked once hecould breathe.
“No. Oh my God. The room went nuts. Half the women had sons.They knew exactly why the pages wouldn’t turn. They all started screaming. Someof them ran out. They couldn’t take it.”
“Did she call you?”
“I was home!”
Logan was seizing with laughter now, red faced and gasping.It was the first time Connor had seen the guy almost lose control before, andit was beautiful. They’d watched each other achieve all manner of ecstasy inbed, but this was the other side of Logan’s pure and unfiltered joy. And givenhow ramrod straight the guy was most of the time, it was great to see him comeclose to falling apart.
“I was upstairs,” Connor said. “I ran into the great roombecause I thought somebody had been murdered, and there’s my mom holding up thissticky coffee table book and screaming at me.”
“Did everyone leave?” Logan asked.
“Oh, no. Some thought it was great. They were refillingtheir wine glasses’causethey wanted to see whathappened next.”
“What happened next?” Logan asked between gasps.
“I ran.”
“Where?”
“The ocean, I think. Drowning seemed like a good way to go.Seriously. It was the most embarrassed I’d been in my entire life.”
Then, suddenly, a slender, smooth arm snaked around Logan’sshoulders, and a stunningly gorgeous man in a straw cowboy hat brought hispouty lips inches from Logan’s cheek. The guy was model hot, six foot tall and perfectlyproportioned, muscles swelling inside a chest-hugging white tank top. The kindof full-lipped, perfectly bronzed supermodel type you’d expect to see makingout with a guy like Logan on some Instagram account that’s all photos of theperfect couple in question on the balcony of their villa in Mykonos or on thedeck of some yacht in the Caribbean.
“Well, hello there, Sergeant Stud,” the guy cooed in Logan’sear. Then he sank his hand into Logan’s crotch and started kneading what hefound there as if he was intimately familiar with it. He didn’t seem wasted,just drunk on the confidence that came from his impossibly good looks. “Youknow, it’s not good manners to ghost a guy after you tell him to get a sling.Although, I have to say, I like it when you’re rude. And hard.”
Connor didn’t see red, he saw fuchsia.
His breath had caught in his throat. His pulse was roaringin his ears.
This wasn’t jealous with a hard-on. This was straight-upjealous, and the next few seconds, however they played out, suddenly feltfateful.
“I know how you can make it up to me, though. You can breakyour number one rule…” The cowboy leaned in, and that’s when one of Logan’shands went up to block the guy’s puckering lips. When Connor found the courageto look down, he saw Logan had seized the guy’s wrist and was lifting it off hiscrotch.